Expert addresses effects of Korean crises on the world

With North Korea in the grips of a severe famine and South Korea suffering through a prolonged currency crisis, East Asian economic expert Bruce Cumings spoke on campus last week about how the peninsula's problems could affect the rest of the world. Cumings, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, addressed a crowd of about 30 at Lauder-Fischer Hall Tuesday in two separate lectures sponsored by the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies along with the Korean Students Association and Koreans at Penn. The first lecture, "Toward a Comprehensive Settlement of the Korean Problem," focused on North Korea, while the second one addressed "Political Economy and Democracy in South Korea." As he began his first address, Cumings tried to dispel the climate of fear surrounding North Korea. "[North Korea] is not some Oriental communist menace, although many in the media and the American public would portray it in this way," he said. The country is now headed by a newer and younger government under the leadership of Kim Jong Il "which is willing to negotiate with the U.S., wants diplomatic relations and would even welcome U.S. intervention in solving its problems," Cumings said. And there are many problems facing the country. In the mid-1990s, North Korea was devastated by flooding and ravaged by an oil crisis after it stopped receiving oil shipments from the former Soviet Union. Now, its people are suffering from the affects of a severe famine. "The U.S. could easily help alleviate the present situation," Cumings said. He advocated a generous foreign policy that would divert a small portion of the aid traditionally set aside for South Korea to its northern neighbor. "One economist recently estimated that it would only cost $10 to $15 per person [for the] 23 million people in North Korea to solve the food shortages," he added. In the future, further U.S. intervention could also mean moving North Korea toward a more globalized, capitalist system, similar to that of China. He suggested that one day North Korea and South Korea might even be reunified. Cumings outlined two other possible outcomes. "Either we could wait for the North Korean government to collapse, which is unlikely given their history? or we could have another Korean War," he said. "We came close to such a situation in 1994," when it came to the attention of the Pentagon that Korea had the potential to build a series of nuclear bombs -- a crisis finally defused by the intervention of former President Jimmy Carter, he added. In the second of his lectures, Cumings addressed the recent currency crisis gripping South Korea and the implications of the $57 billion International Monetary Fund rescue of the country's failing banks and corporations. "Some economists anticipate a labor backlash and social unrest in the coming months," he said, referring to the downsizing likely to happen as a result of the restructuring of the South Korean economy. Cumings, however, remains optimistic about the country's prospects. "I think that this crisis has brought a needed humility to South Korea while also forcing it into a more efficient, mature economic structure," he said.